"... multi per devia Tityron istum
Ex nostris, canibus sumptis, telisque sequuntur.
Inter quos Faunus, quem tristis et anxia fletu
Thestylis incassum revocat, clamoribus omnem
Concutiens silvam. Tendit tamen ille neglectis
Fletibus...." Eclog. III, p. 268, ed. cit.
[343] It is well known, of course, that King Louis made two descents into Italy: one in 1347 before the Black Death, and one after it in 1350. Hortis tells us that this Eclogue is certainly dated 1348 (op. cit., p. 5, n. 4). It therefore must allude to the first descent. This is confirmed, as Hortis points out, by the poems themselves. (1) By the chronological order in which Boccaccio treats of events in the Eclogues. The first two deal with his love, and those immediately following the third, of the events of 1348. (2) By the contents of the third Eclogue itself, which deals first with the happiness of Naples under King Robert, with his death, the murder of Andrew, and the descent of King Louis, his passage, as we shall see, through Forlì in 1347, whence Francesco degli Ordelaffi set out with him for Lower Italy: all of which happened not in the second, but in the first (1347) descent of King Louis.
[344] Villani, Cronica, Lib. XII, cap. 107.
[345] Cf. Annales Cæsenates R. I. S., Tom. XIV, col. 1179, and Hortis, op. cit., p. 8, n. 3. The latter argues long and successfully for the departure of Ordelaffo with King Louis at this date: to which he also ascribes the letters of Boccaccio to Zanobi (Quam pium, quam sanctum), by some considered apochryphal (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 447), where Boccaccio says: "Varronem quidem nondum habui: eram tamen habiturus in brevi, nisi itinera instarent ad illustrem Hungariæ regem in estremis Brutiorum et Campaniæ quo moratur, nam ut sua imitetur arma iustissima meus inclitus dominus et Pieridum hospes gratissimus cum pluribus Flamineæ proceribus præparetur; quo et ipse, mei prædicti domini jussu non armiger, sed ut ita loquar rerum occurrentium arbiter sum iturus, et præestantibus Superis, omnes in brevi victoria habita et celebrato triumpho dignissime proprias [sic] revisuri." The letter is dated Forlì.